"coLAB Arts is incredibly honored to be named a new recipient for NEA funding. We’ve spent the better part of the last decade finding our voice as an organization that creates work with and for our community," said Dan Swern, producing director of coLAB Arts. "NEA cuts won’t stop us from doing our work, though [it] would slow down our growth and reduce our capacity for impact."

The 18th annual Makin Waves Awards' celebration of New Jersey's best local talent shows just how rich and fertile the Garden State is for independent arts and entertainment

Best Theater Group: coLAB Arts. New Brunswick’s fine art is even finer thanks to coLAB, especially their theatrical stage productions.

Best Dance Group: Rock Dance Collective. Under the lovely artistic direction of Cleo Mack, Blair Ritchie, and Kelli McGovern, co-owners of Washington Rock Dance in Warren, Rock Dance Collective are as environmentally and socially minded as they are beautifully inventive.

Congrats to coLAB Arts, who not only won the Makin Waves Award for Best Theater Group, but also a $10,000 Challenge America grant to support the Rail/Arts/River Artist Residency, an artist-in-residence who will be selected and embedded in the work of the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership. The environmental organization is dedicated to conservation and restoration of the Raritan River. The soon-to-be-named artist will develop public artwork in the low-income community of New Brunswick. Past work created through this arts and environmental partnership has resulted in the Watershed Sculpture Project, which integrates refuse from river cleanups into the creation and exhibition of sculptural works.

A group of playwrights, directors and composers gather around a table of stuff. The challenge is this: take three props, two partners and a topic — all randomly assigned — and write a musical in 48 hours.

If you’re a regular listener of podcasts like The Moth, Risk! or This American Life, you know how engaging storytelling in its purest form can be. For those who’ve always wanted to try their turn at the mic, New Brunswick’s coLAB Arts has a new monthly event: The Vom.